May I Have This Dance? : England x Reader
by Asuye
Summary: A sick child, damned to the terrible fate of death at such a young age, finds a way to survive long over her expiration date; with something so simple as a dance.


"My mother never showed me any affection at all…" Spoken words finally dropped from the child's rose-red lips, coaxed out by soothing lullabies and honey slipping down the inflamed throat.

He froze, his pale hand trembling in midair whilst holding the cold metal spoon full of a sticky liquid. "I-is that so, love?" His voice quivered just as much as his body did as he bent down closer to the female, steadily pouring the medicine into her open mouth.

She nodded, her h/c bangs bobbing with her rather oblong head, fatigued eyes full of what resembled malaise.

The two stayed silent for a while as the strawberry blonde haired boy continued to meekly feed the girl her daily dose of grape medicine.

Occasional dreary comments from her had no other use than to slow the feeding down ever so slightly.

"I think she's malevolent."

"Is that so, love?"

"Papa used to tell me stories about leviathans. I think she's secretly one. Maybe she even murdered Papa."

"I-I'm sure that's not true, y/nl/n. That is your name, right?"

She stretched her lips apart, white teeth showing as she prepared to answer her caretaker. An unanticipated slamming of a wooden door broke her sentences to ashes, as someone screeched, "y/n, I'm going out! Stay with Arthur!"

y/n flinched closer to her pillows, raising her blankets, almost as if she expected the owner of the voice to teleport with a weapon ready in hand to spear her through the heart. She hesitated, daring to glance up at Arthur's eyes, and seemed to melt a little. They were, after all, the green that shone so lustrously when the sunrays strike the stained glass windows in a church. They were of a deep emerald hue, awash with hints of gold and flecks of yellow. And they were full of something else, that was not a colour.

"When your mother first described you to me, I…I thought you would be very obstreperous." Arthur appeared to dislike using these flamboyant words that part of his lexicon with one younger than himself.

"I know."

He tilted his chin towards the ground, a nervousness imprinted onto every crease of his face.

"Do you pity me?"

"…yes."

"No use in doing that. I'm not full of maudlin, like most others my age would be." Her eyes shone with emotion—the colour so unlike his, not a bleached chartreuse, but of the family of the heavily-lidded, once luminous e/c1-flecked e/c2 of a fruit that resembles e/c's husk that had dimmed into lusterless shadows. Her h/l hair, thick and healthy, was a layer of the bark of a h/c tree over flushed cheeks. Her thinly plucked eyebrows, perpetually raised upwards as if she was surprised, were a contrast to the boy's, whose eyebrows were voluminous and quirked in an absurd fashion over his orbs of light that he called eyes. Her thin, skeletal frame was different from the powerfully-muscled physique of Arthur. The two seemed an odd couple; she leaning towards death, he still thriving in the springtime of life.

He set the mottled mug down on the table, lethargically watching the lazily spiraling streams of hot air meandering towards the ceiling. "I can't believe you've survived y/a years in this kind of milieu."

"I don't believe you've survived nineteen years without a home to dwell in," she returned feebly.

"At least I was never beaten by a poorly educated parent." He shifted his shoulders up and down in a shrugging motion, his uniform rustling as he moved.

"…that's true. But it must have been hard, living on the streets."

"Menageries. The streets I lived on could be described as those," he offered weakly, attempting to force a smile onto his pasty lips to elevate the spirits of the lass. "And full of…tarts…and mawkish lads singing to their lassies abou' their love that wou'd last fo'ever…" His formidable British accent softened, his vocabulary withering away as if it was ready to retire from his tongue.

"You sound like a pirate. I've always wanted to meet a pirate," her lithe fingers hastened across her chest to entertain herself by flicking the featureless ribbon that adorned her nightgown, "It'd be cool."

"A maritime ship full of those types of individuals would not engage such a female as you in pleasing conversation. Do all damsels find corsairs so intriguing?" An inkling of distaste was plastered in his question.

"I find you intriguing. You're kinda cute for someone so young…"

The colour of his cheeks turned into an intense scarlet, as his muscles tensed, realising y/n was growing drowsy from the exchange. He wrinkled his nose uncomfortably, as if he had detected a malodor in the air. He lifted up the quilt, pressing her warm forehead to his upper body, as if he was trying to defend her from the illness that accelerated her slow death. "…y-you think, love?"

"I don't think, I know."

"Are you bored?"

"Are you?"

"U-uh…I don't know…"

"Do you know how to dance?"

It was a sudden question, a well of water popping into existence on a lonely planet with no living beings around it to make it appear.

Arthur gazed at her with self-consciousness written all over his countenance.

"…sorry," she apologised.

"A-ah, no need. I-I do, in fact."

"Can you teach me…?"

"…will your sickness…?"

"Cancer doesn't do that, Arthur…well, maybe it does. O-or maybe my cold does that. But…I like to think that…that I could have some entertainment before I…go…" Her sentence gave way to an influx of tears, as she pathetically grasped at his shirt, wanting to hold onto life, onto everything that she had ever held in her small lifetime.

He nearly had to fight down the feeling of loathing, the urge to push the fragile youngster away from his body. But he just couldn't—the guilt would be too much to handle.

Instead he swung his legs out of bed. "I'll teach you how to dance, I guess." He extended one arm towards the computer sitting on the table, his fingers tapping fiercely at the keyboard in an effort to forget the abominable thing that had welled up in his heart like water pouring from a crack moments earlier. A small melody strained to escape from the electronic device; Arthur slowly struck a key, and the flawless song of a singer filled the dismal atmosphere of the room. He proffered a hand to the girl who looked quite neurotic.

"May I have this dance?"

With a minuscule twitch of her lips, she nodded. He pulled her out of the mass of sheets, smiling.

"Take my hand. Breathe softly…and let the music be your guide." His breath tickled her ears as they began to sway slowly to the rhythm of the harmony.

Before long, they had become partners in the art of dancing with one another. Arthur scrutinized her, allowing a small magnanimous compassion to replace the despicable hate in his soul. She clung to his hands tightly, as if they would bind her to the joy of her existence.

"You know, love, you're pretty good at this."

"...thanks...Arthur."

* * *

Years passed. Yet the ecstasy of the single night alone with her best friend had permitted her to live a good while longer than her predicted expiration date. But still she had passed on—onwards to another place.

Arthur strode silently and swiftly with his black frock coat flapping frantically in the wind across the meadow, gazing at a small and golden hand mirror. He noted how much his eyes had become like hers; green glasses coated with the shadows of a looming death. In his other hand was a bright bundle of pure white orchids—_so ironic,_ he observed. _They will exist even longer than I. To think of something so ridiculous as that. Flowers outlasting a human being…but be it that way, I cannot change it. I have contracted the incurable ailment that stole dear y/n away from us…_

"y/n, I'm here." He spoke aloud, stopping in his tracks and fastening the bouquet to moonbeam-coated headstone that stood silently, a white soldier in a black night.

_y/nl/n. Beloved daughter of f/nl/n and m/nl/nDied of cancer. b/d-April 11, 2013._

"y/n, I've been wanting to see your lovely face for a long time now. Photographs just won't do," he chuckled bitterly. "y/n, you know, I've gotten cancer too. But I've'nt anyone to cheer me up. I guess I was a real philanthropist to you, huh? That dance must have done a lot for you.

"I never realised how much you cherished me as a friend until I read your journal. I had to say, I was so emotionally overcome I nearly gave up on life.

"In your last month, I came nearly every day to visit you. Do you remember? I do. The way your face looked the way it did when you saw me. It looked that way after you practically collapsed on your bed after the song ended.

"You had the appearance of the most beautiful ray of sunshine. But I never realised that, did I…? Another thing I overlooked. I failed to notice so, so many things about you…

"And…and just before you left us…it hit me. The four letter word that I never said to you. But it was there. It was, all along.

"So, y/n…f-forgive me. I'll be coming soon. I hope I see you up there!" A pain-filled scream rang through the air, as the young man pointed upwards towards the heavens. A boom rung through the darkening clouds, and the sky began to weep along with Arthur.

"y/n, you caught my heart from the moment I saw you! You're bloody beautiful, you still are, it doesn't matter if you're not here with me and can't hear me saying this! I miss you! y/n, you just wait up there! I'll be coming soon! And I promise, I'll ask you for another dance up there! You wait, love!"

As he left the flowers to drown in the downfall of water, a ghostly apparition of the girl he had been crying out to appeared, her outline quaking dangerously underneath the sheet of rain.

_I'll be waiting there, Arthur. _

She vanished again, leaving nothing but the sweet scent of orchids and a melody ringing through the trees.


End file.
